ACC Facilities Round-Up (Part 1) - Boston College

In the first installment of our facilities round-up, let's take a look at Boston College. Located in Chestnut Hill, 6 miles west of downtown Boston, the Eagles have a strong tradition of athletics (the recent futility in football and men's basketball not withstanding). Here's a brief overview of their varsity sports:

Boston College Athletic Programs

Men's ACC-sponsored Sports (11 of 13)

• Baseball
• Basketball
• Cross Country
• Fencing
• Football
• Golf
• Soccer
• Swimming & Diving
• Tennis
• Track & Field (Indoor)
• Track & Field (Outdoor)

Women's ACC-sponsored Sports (14 of 14)

• Basketball
• Cross Country
• Fencing
• Field Hockey
• Golf
• Lacrosse
• Rowing
• Soccer
• Softball
• Swimming & Diving
• Tennis
• Track & Field (Indoor)
• Track & Field (Outdoor)
• Volleyball

In addition to those lists, they field varsity teams in following sports as well:

• Ice Hockey (men & women)
• Sailing
• Skiing

Perpetuating the northeastern stereotype much?

Because sailing and skiing are not common sports in the collegiate ranks and BC is the only school in the ACC that fields varsity teams, I don't want to get too far into the weeds on this. If you're interested in reading a little more about either of these, I've included some Wikipedia links to help get you started:

Intercollegiate Sailing Association

List of NCCA Skiing Programs

Now that the sports themselves are introduced, let's look at some of the facilities these teams use!

Alumni Stadium

Boston College plays their football games at the 44,500 capacity Alumni Stadium. When originally built in 1957, the field was encircled by a regulation track and the structure held 26,000 but subsequent renovations have increased the capacity and removed the track with the most recent upgrade coming in 1995.

If you look at the picture above, you will see several other athletic facilities attached to the stadium. One of these is along the north end and it houses the Yawkey Athletics Center (top right in the photo), which was a $27 million, 72,000 square foot addition that enhanced athletic programs across the board. The pictures and description below come from the BC Athletics website:

It includes football offices, meeting and breakout rooms, the team's locker rooms, a state-of-the-art sports medicine suite, strength and conditioning facility, the Eagles' football-specific equipment room, theater-style classrooms, recruiting amenities and player lounges.

The building also features the Murray Family Function Room, the Athletic Department's largest multi-function room that also benefits the entire BC campus. After viewing the firm's impressive work at North Carolina, North Carolina State and Virginia Tech, BC contracted DJS Design of Charlotte, N.C., for the concept, design and construction of the Hajjar Family Football Museum.

Located in the main entry lobby, the museum features a soaring bronze eagle atop a lighted granite pedestal as its centerpiece. A multimedia kiosk will enable visitors to watch video highlights of great games and players in BC football history. Visitors will be allowed to touch and have photos taken with Doug Flutie's Heisman Trophy, which is displayed in the open with no glass enclosure. Click to take a tour.

...

Completion of the Yawkey Center created a domino effect of facilities improvements for sports other than football. Once the football and Learning Resources staffs completed their move to the Yawkey Ccenter, workers began a multi-million dollar renovation to Conte Forum.

The construction provided new office and locker room space for many of BC's 31 varsity men's and women's sports, as well as new office space for much of the administrative staff. Women's basketball moved into a new suite of offices shortly thereafter, and the old football locker room has been converted into five new locker rooms for women's sports. Several coaching staffs moved into larger office spaces in Alumni Stadium's South end zone, formerly the home of LRSA.

What about a practice facility, you ask? Well, they have one of those too... sort of.

Behold, The Bubble.

The bubble's main purpose is to serve as a practice facility for all of the Eagles' teams during the winter months, housing 11 varsity sports: football, baseball, field hockey, golf, lacrosse, softball, soccer and track teams all utilize the bubble for indoor training during the New England winters.

Conte Forum

Home for both the men's and women's basketball and hockey teams, the arena holds 8,606 spectators for basketball and 7,884 for hockey. As the largest indoor venue on the BC campus, Conte Forum hosts larger university-related events including conferences and debates. In the event of inclement weather, Conte Forum also hosts the university's commencement exercises.

Conte Forum also houses the 950-seat Power Gymnaisum. Power Gymnasium is the main venue for BC Volleyball, but it's also used as an auxiliary basketball court for practices. Below is a quick timelapse video showing the transformation.

Moving along to the baseball facilities, BC plays their games at the Eddie Pelligrini Diamond at Shea Field. If you scroll up to the first picture in the article, you'll notice that the baseball field is immediately adjacent to the parking garage attached to Alumni Stadium and there are cars parked on the outfield grass. During baseball games, spectators often fill the stands and line the garage ramp to catch the action.

Just beyond the centerfield fence of the baseball stadium is Shea Softball Field. From available photographs, it appears that there are a few small bleachers behind home plate and along the baselines.

While the facilities highlighted above are on Boston College's Chestnut Hill campus, a 5-minute drive to BC's Newton Campus has facilities dedicated to the soccer, lacrosse and field hockey teams. The Newton Campus Soccer and Lacrosse Complex was opened in 1999, with the most recent upgrade coming in 2014 season as AstroTurf installed its state-of-the-art 3D60H artificial playing surface. The facility also features permanent team benches canopied to guard against the elements and a 30-seat enclosed press box complete with a roof deck filming area.

The Field Hockey Complex is not only the team's home field in competitions, the facility also serves as team's practice location. Opened in 2005, the complex includes a 750-seat bleacher, a press box and a sports lighting system for evening play. In preparation for the 2007 fall season, wireless internet and a closed-in press box were added. In 2014, the facility received even more enhancements, including a brand-new AstroTurf 12 surface, a new watering system with increased power and speed and a brand new scoreboard.

Situated about 3 miles from both the Chestnut Hill and Newton campuses, the Harry Parker Boathouse is located along the Charles River. The facility is a state-of-the-art building featuring 30,000 square feet of space, while the main common room has space for 60 indoor rowing machines and the building features a first-class weight room and locker rooms. Additional space houses coach and administrative offices, classrooms and is fully wireless compatible. The building is also environmentally friendly with geo-thermal heating units and special drainage to keep runoff from the boathouse and surrounding parking areas from draining into the Charles River.

Moving along to the tennis teams, they utilize two facilities for practices and competitions. The first is the Dedham Health & Athletic Complex, New England's largest integrated health and wellness facility that has 11 indoor hard courts. The second facility is back on the Chestnut Hill campus at the Flynn Recreation Complex. With indoor and outdoor courts, the tennis teams share the facility with the rest of the campus population.

Opened in 1972, the "Plex" also includes an indoor track, an eight-lane swimming pool, saunas, basketball courts, squash courts, handball courts, a batting cage, a golf driving cage, an area for gymnastics, and facilities for aerobics and weight training.

Not only is the Flynn Recreation Complex home to the tennis teams, but it also serves as the practice and competition facilities for the fencing teams as well as BC's swimming & diving programs.

As far as I can tell through my internet research, Boston College does not have any dedicated track & field facilities. Judging by the recent lack of success of their cross country and track & field teams (3 straight 15th place finishes in the men's ACC Indoor Track & Field Championships for example), these sports are not a high priority in the athletics pecking order.

One of the biggest takeaways from researching Boston College's athletics facilities is that they make efficient use of their limited space. Being in the Boston metro area, land is expensive and development is notoriously difficult in the northeast due to NIMBYism. Just take a look at this Google aerial of their Chestnut Hill campus:

Alumni Stadium, Conte Forum, Power Gymnasium, Pellegrini Diamond, Shea Softball Field and the Flynn Recreation Complex are more or less attached to one another. You can also see a football practice field right next to the baseball & softball fields - the Bubble attempts to utilize the space even more efficiently, but during long New England winters one can imagine that practice space for teams might be extremely limited. With these constraining factors, the athletics department has realized that something must be done. Just last month, BC announced intentions to undertake a $200 million project for athletics facilities.

$200M PLAN FOR ATHLETICS FACILITIES ANNOUNCED

CHESTHUT HILL, Mass. - Boston College Athletics Director Brad Bates announced plans today for three projects to enhance intercollegiate, intramural and club sports at Boston College: a recreational center, athletics playing fields, and an athletics field house.

The initiatives, an investment of approximately $200 million, result from a multi-year assessment and planning effort regarding BC Athletics, as well as focused fundraising with alumni and friends of Boston College.

The recreational center, a 240,000 square-foot facility that will replace the Flynn Recreation Complex and be located at the site of Edmonds Hall on Thomas More Drive, will benefit all BC students, faculty and staff. Approved by the City of Boston in 2009 as part of the University's Institutional Master Plan (IMP), the project will begin this summer after permits have been obtained. The center, made possible by a lead gift from Trustee Margot Connell and her family, will require two years for construction.

The University will also seek permitting for new baseball, softball and intramural fields on the Brighton Campus, which were also approved in the 2009 IMP.

Bates said that fundraising for both projects will continue throughout the process.

In addition, Bates stated that the University will begin discussions with Boston city officials regarding construction of an athletics field house that would be located adjacent to Alumni Stadium. This indoor facility, to be funded through private gifts, would provide much-needed space for varsity football and other field sports, as well as campus recreation, club sports, and intramurals.

Additional information about the new recreational complex, playing fields and athletics field house will be made available to the Boston College Allston-Brighton Community Task Force and local residents in a pre-filing meeting.

"These new facilities will provide benefits for all BC students and student-athletes," said Bates. "We need the financial support of all of our alumni who have benefitted from their BC education to provide opportunities for the next generation of BC students. The athletics field house sets an example of what we can do when our alumni and friends offer their support for our athletics initiatives.

"We are excited for the future of BC Athletics."

So there you have it. Boston College is seemingly about to enter the facilities arms race, so perhaps we'll see an uptick in their national profile once again. Considering the Hokies will likely play them in football until the end of eternity (or at least it feels like it), having a good BC team would at least be another notch on the belt as VT comes to prominence again under Coach Fuente.

If you've made it this far, thanks a million. This installment took a lot longer than I anticipated and it still fell short of some of the excellent suggestions people made in the preview post. But hey, perhaps we can discuss some of those things in the comment section. And if there are any suggestions for future posts, I'm open to feedback and will try to improve in the next installment featuring Clemson.